Hey Valene,
I 100% agree with your point on religion being such a huge aspect of the ancient people’s lives. You pointed out that they would never want to disobey their priest-king, because defying them would be defying the gods as well – which I think is another great point. You also stated that Saddam Hussein used the Ziggurat of Ur to try and protect planes by hoping people would respect the areas cultural significance. However, I still think his idea was a good one – they didn’t attack the area out of disrespect for the culture they only did because of the man that was there. We also see that there is a mass amount of respect for the area / ziggurat itself because even Hussein wanted to reconstruct it (at least in part).